In 2003, the ever prescient William Gibson wrote about the rate of change and its impact in his acclaimed book Pattern Recognition: “Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which ‘now’ was of some greater duration. For us, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents’ have insufficient ‘now’ to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile…we have only risk management.”
The current chapter on progress is still being written, but it is increasingly concerned with balancing risk to the individual, the community, and even humanity's survival. It broadens the traditional notion of progress with a sense of responsibility for all that might be at stake.
Manifest Destiny, the rallying cry of previous centuries, has been replaced with a growing sense of unease – a feeling that all forward motion is not necessarily motion in the right direction.
A strong counter narrative has emerged in mainstream culture. This narrative is driven by the belief that progress is not uniformly positive and, in fact, some progress occurs at the distinct and measurable expense of our privacy, our humanity and our planet. The accepted human story of progress – unquestioned betterment over time – is now accompanied by a growing concern about the price of progress, the unequal distribution of its benefits and the unknown consequences of our various endeavors.
From the emotional stance of “Let’s go!” we have progressed to asking, often fearfully, “Where are we going, exactly?”
Some of the fear of progress is clearly fed by the unstoppable truth of Moore’s Law, the incredible rate of change we are living through. Systems that have not changed since the Industrial Revolution are being reinvented in real time. Today we are tasked with incorporating a wholesale reinvention of our world, our understanding of progress and how we define the kind of destination we wish to reach. Dealing with such existential questions all at once, often feels exhausting, but we have a responsibility to each other to not let George Mobiot’s observation become the de facto destination: “Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions that sustain life.”
As Albert Lin’s series Lost Cities Revealed illustrates, progress has never been a solitary endeavor. Rather, throughout history, the communities that have been most resilient and successful in the face of seemingly daunting challenges, including climate change, are the ones that prioritize human connection and invite different perspectives and experiences.
And while the destination may be still unknown, it is clear that charting the path to a better future is a communal, shared responsibility. Science and technology communicators (think AI) can lead the way with substantive and creative approaches that offer context with good storytelling and facilitate transparent dialogue. Without this, fear and superstition may become the new decision makers and with that the Manifest Destination.
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